TED is seeking a talk, to be delivered at our 2015 conference, about the increasingly common practice of documenting extreme sports and outdoor adventures via GoPro and other wearable cameras. The ideal talk will be heavy on jaw-dropping visuals and also cultural context: Why are these point-of-view videos so compelling? How are they changing professional and amateur athletics? Are they morphing our reasons for pursuing certain activities? Or how we feel while doing them? What are the personal and collective risks associated with filming our every (sometimes-crazy) move? Are those risks outweighed by the benefits? And what *are* those benefits, exactly, other than entertaining us?

The ideal speaker will be knowledgeable about sports, exploration, outdoor activities, and/or visual culture. But if you can prove to us that you can deliver an outstanding presentation, we don’t care whether you’re a journalist or an art critic or a snowboard enthusiast. You need not be a video-editing genius (we can help with that), but you do need to be able to select outstanding footage and weave it into a terrifically fun and thought-provoking narrative. You’ll be responsible for securing the rights to any footage you plan to use, but we’re happy to give advice and lend a hand where we can. Also, while we provide all speakers with rehearsal time and speaker coaching, you need to have something great to say, and you need to be excited to be on a stage.

TED2015 will be held from March 16-20 in Vancouver, Canada. The selected speaker will be provided with airfare, accommodations, and a conference pass. If you are interested, please submit a short proposal (no more than 300 words) describing your own background and the content and structure of your presentation. Please also include a link to a video of you speaking in public or a newly recorded 1-minute video (using a cell phone or webcam) describing your idea. All submissions must be received by 5pm EST on Friday, January 30, 2015.

]]>http://blog.ted.com/apply-to-give-a-talk-at-ted2015-about-wearable-cameras/feed/2Give-a-TED-Talk-on-wearable-cameras-featuretedstaffGive a TED Talk on wearable camerasThe changing face of explorationhttp://blog.ted.com/the-changing-face-of-exploration/
http://blog.ted.com/the-changing-face-of-exploration/#commentsThu, 05 Dec 2013 16:10:08 +0000http://blog.ted.com/?p=84401[…]]]>To explore is human. It’s as basic as cooking and bathing, and as essential as song and dance. It’s not something that needs a lengthy explanation — whether you’re 3 or 103, it’s the tingly feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when you venture into unknown terrain.

Across ages and cultures, there have always been explorers — the people who decided to follow that tingly feeling through mountain ranges, across the oceans and even into outer space. We come from a long line of wanderers who made it to the edge, wondered what lay beyond, and went to find out.

Popular culture might lead you to believe that the golden age of exploration is behind us — that we’ve made it to all the corners of the world, to the bottom of the ocean, and already put a man on the moon. But pop culture may also have lead you to believe that cable television has already captured the best of what the universe has to offer.

Wrong on both counts. In fact, we’re just getting started. We’re only at the very beginning of Exploration 2.0.

This new age of exploration is driven, not by cartoonish, stereotypical old men with bushy beards, but by teams of highly-skilled professionals and networks of talented amateurs across the globe. It’s powered by well-structured programs and by makers with access to cheap sensors and digital fabrication tools. It’s NASA’s Curiosity rover and Planet Labs “Flock 1” satellites. It’s James Cameron’s Deep Challenger and thousands of OpenROVs. It’s NASA’s Mohawk Guy … and you and me.

Exploration 2.0 means you’ll be able to read James Cameron’s Twitter messages from the bottom of the Marianas Trench, while simultaneously building an underwater robot in your garage to explore an underwater cave system. (An actual scene from my life last year.) It means seeing the latest Mars photos from Curiosity, and then going to Zooniverse to help identify new galaxies. New frontiers are still all around us. And with an internet connection, you’ve got a front row seat — as well as an invitation — to play a role.

Exploration 2.0 is social. It’s no longer about the lone adventurer. It’s about all of us, much more like Wikipedia than the Apollo missions, for example. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that the internet has enabled a whole new way to do things — both collaborative and distributed. The new explorers aren’t just the famous names in National Geographic, they’re also the ones who want to be a part of something bigger. You may not recognize them, but here are some examples of the new faces of exploration:

Name: Leslie BushAge: 23Location: Atlanta, GeorgiaExploring: “I’m currently exploring the Chattahoochee River and Georgia Coastline, but having an OpenROV encourages me to get out of my comfort zone and travel to exotic places I’ve always lusted after in documentaries, like the Galapagos.”

Name: Dominik FretzAge: 32Location: Bondi Beach, Sydney, AustraliaExploring: “I’m a scuba diver and have always been curious about what is under the sea. I’m using my OpenROV to raise curiosity in non-divers by showing them what amazing creatures live underwater and how delicate this ecosystem is.”

Name: Jessica MurrayAge: 34Location: Providence, RIExploring: “I originally built the OpenROV to conduct research on meromictic lakes for my MFA thesis at the Rhode Island School of Design. The bottom layer of a meromictic lake is oxygen depleted, and I’m interested in the mutations and adaptations that have allowed organisms to survive in that environment — from real organisms like purple sulfur bacteria and living fossils like bowfin, to legendary lake monsters.”

Name: Thomas SøftelandAge: 30Location: An island called Sotra just outside of Bergen, Norway.Exploring: “During WW2 there was a lot of activity in the Bergen area, and a number of german U-boats were sunk. I’m looking for them with my kids (ages 2 and 6).”

Name: Brian AdamsAge: 40Location: Oakland, CAExploring: “I am enchanted by the notion that past civilizations have something to offer us. The rash of discoveries of underwater ruins and cities in the Gulf and off the Egyptian coast have stories that are yet to be told. Not now, but in the future I will be able to drive an ROV to explore those structures. Today I am laying the footwork for that journey by fanning the flames of curiosity in my boys through the hands-on constructions of real life robots that they can control and extend that do real world exploration. No matter who you are, that is simply cool.”

This is just a glimpse at the changing nature of exploration. There are hundreds of other individuals and groups springing up around the world, and doing everything from monarch butterfly monitoring to crowdsourced radioactivity tracking. They’re using new tools — everything from DIY drones for conservation or ultra-low cost spectrometers — that don’t require a research grant, just access to the growing network of makerspaces around the world.

]]>http://blog.ted.com/the-changing-face-of-exploration/feed/4explorer-Brian-Adams-redodavidtlangexplorer-Leslie-Bush_OpenROV-picexplorer-Dominik-OpenROVexplorer-Murray_OpenROVexplorer-thomas-(1-of-1)Name: Brian Adams Age: 40 Location: Oakland, CA Exploring: "I am enchanted by the notion that past civilizations have something to offer us. The rash of discoveries of underwater ruins and cities in the Gulf and off the Egyptian coast have stories that are yet to be told. Not now, but in the future I will be able to drive an ROV to explorer those structures. Today I am laying the footwork for that journey by fanning the flames of curiosity in my boys through the hands on constructions of real life robots that they can control and extend that do real world exploration. No matter who you are, that is simply cool."TED speakers discuss the 125th anniversary of National Geographichttp://blog.ted.com/ted-speakers-discuss-the-125th-anniversary-of-national-geographic/
http://blog.ted.com/ted-speakers-discuss-the-125th-anniversary-of-national-geographic/#commentsWed, 23 Jan 2013 17:30:24 +0000http://blog.ted.com/?p=67911[…]]]>

Happy birthday, National Geographic. The intrepid magazine turns 125-years-old this month. Yesterday, NPR’s Talk of the Nation invited TED speakers Robert Ballard and Sarah Parcak on the air to discuss the notable anniversary.

Robert Ballard: The astonishing hidden world of the deep ocean
Ballard, who is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, talked about a recent expedition to the Black Sea, where he discovered a very well-preserved shipwreck. Ballard, who gave the TED Talk “On exploring oceans,” told host Neal Conan, “The deep sea is the largest museum in the world. It has more history in it than all the museums of the world combined.”

Ballard also proved that he has a photographic memory for National Geographic issues, telling a caller who described his favorite story that it came out in December 1981.

“When you think about the scale of human populations all over the world and the fact that there’s so much here, really the only way to be able to visualize that is to pull back in space … It allows us to see hidden temples and tombs and pyramids and even entire settlements,” she says. “What satellites help to show us is we’ve actually only found a fraction of a percent of ancient settlements and sites all over the world. … It’s the most exciting time in history to be an archaeologist.”

Parcak said that, growing up, she kept every National Geographic issue that contained images of Egypt. “It’s both Indiana Jones and National Geographic that inspired me to be an Egyptologist,” she said.